Italian Communist Party Says 'A First Class No' To UK Royal Mail Sale

A logo sits on a sign outside Royal Mail Group Ltd.'s postal sorting office in Romford, U.K., on Wednesday, July 10, 2013. The U.K. government will sell a majority stake in Royal Mail Group Ltd., the 360-year-old state postal service, through an initial public offering before the end of March, Business Secretary Vince Cable said. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

But now, he has to handle a dramatic intervention from the Italian Communist Party.

Despite assuring MPs that the critics of the sale were “scareongering”, Cable has faced a stinging rebuke from the far-left movement.

The Italian Communists have issued a rousing defense, calling for the delivery service to remain in public hands. Clearly they haven't been put off by Royal Mail's monarchical overtones.

In a statement, Alain Fissore said the government’s move “reflects the need for more money from Capitalist forces (private monopolies) inside and outside Britain”.

“Instead of converting Royal Mail’s employees into shareholders of a privatised company, with the risk of gambling the future of their jobs, and their health and pension rights in the Stock Exchange, Royal Mail must be kept public,” he adds.

The Partito Comunista’s Full Statement On the Royal Mail Privatisation

A‘first class’ no to the privatisation of Royal Mail.”

The recent announcement from the Tory-LibDem Government of privatising the Royal Mail is a clear example of how deep the economical crisis of Capitalism is in Britain, as well as in the rest of the European countries. Capitalism is in crisis, and that is proven by job cuts in the public sector; the closure of hospitals, schools, libraries, and of other public services; the high number of closures affecting small and medium size independent shops and small companies run by independent tradesmen; the rise in the number of people struggling to pay their rents or mortgages; pay and working conditions worsening in the private sector.

The privatisation of the Royal Mail, as well as the introduction of private companies in services like Education and the NHS, is not necessary because privateers work better than the pubblic sector: there is no clear evidence of that. Privatisation is an ideological choice in modern Politics, a form of Politics that media keep describing every day as democratic (democracy means the power of the majority - people’s power), but which is out of touch from the rest of society: a 10% pay rise (by 6,000 to 74,000 £ a year) for politicians from 2015.

Mr. Cameron’s plan for privatising Royal Mail reflects the need for more money from Capitalist forces (private monopolies) inside and outside Britain, like the banking and financial sector, pushed on Governments by policies coming from the IMF (the same policies behind the privatisations of public companies in Britain under Labour and Tory Governments from 1976). Instead of converting Royal Mail’s employees into shareholders of a privatised company, with the risk of gambling the future of their jobs, and their health and pension rights in the Stock Exchange, Royal Mail must be kept public.

The only way out from the actual economic crisis is not privatisation (old-fashioned Politics), but more public ownership of strategic economic sectors under the direct control of employees, with no compensation for the private owners who get their companies nationalised: the recent cases of banks publicly owned and the failures of private security firms like G4S and Serco prove that privatisation does not work. The only answer to this crisis is an Economy based on the actual needs of people, rather than based on the needs of greedy bosses, shareholders, and bankers for more private profit. No to Capitalism’s private monopolies in the Royal Mail!